The counter-insurgent, Mohammad Yousaf Sheikh alias Gudru, was killed along with his son by militants last year.

Police said a group of unidentified militants, armed with sophisticated weapons, barged into a house at Dagapora, 21 km from here, and dragged all the male members out of the house and fired at them last night.

Five members of the family identified as Abdul Rehman Sheikh, Zahoor Ahmad Sheikh, Bilal Ahmad Sheikh, Abdul Hamid Sheikh and Sajad Ahmad Sheikh died on the spot while two others were critically wounded, it added. The injured Bilal Ahmad Dar and Khursheed Ahmad Dar were rushed to Soura MedicalInstitute and their condition was stated to be critical.

The family was reportedly having close links with counter-insurgents which is said to have been the motive behind the militant attack, police said.

This was the third massacre in Ganderbal this year. Earlier, on January 25, militants had massacred at least 23 members of the minority community at Wandhama, while four members of a family fell to militants at Khurhama, Ganderbal on August 9.

No militant outfit has owned responsibility for last night's massacre so far. The police spokesman said a hunt has been launched by the security forces with the assistance of local police to track down the killers.

A sense of insecurity gripped the residents of this remote village with most of the men not willing to speak anything about the killings due to fear of retaliation. The widows wailed in a room surrounded by neighbours.

One of the deceased, Bilal Sheikh, was a washerman with the Border Security Force (BSF). He had recently extended his earned leaveto help his pregnant wife, Zamrooda, in paddy harvesting.

Khursheed, who survived the attack, told The Indian Express that the gunmen knocked at their door at 11.30 pm and asked the male members to come out as there was a crackdown operation by the security forces in the village. Pointing out that they were speaking in Urdu, he said that ``they asked us to move at gunpoint and lineup after travelling about half a km. Thereafter, they opened indiscriminate fire on us but luckily, I fell down on the ground before bullets could hit me,'' he added.

Meanwhile, relatives of the deceased accused the State Government of not paying heed to their repeated requests for protection after the militant attacks last year. ``We were apprehending more militant attacks after the Wandhama massacre, but nobody listed to us,'' an elderly villager said.

``And, here is the result -- five are dead while two are struggling for life on a hospital bed,'' said Ahmad Sheikh, a close relative of the family who had fortunatelygone to a friend's house at that time. ``The nearest security camp was at least two km away and everybody among us knew that this was bound to happen one day,'' he added.